


We Can Still Have Fun

by listerinezero



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, Retirement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2013-12-07
Packaged: 2018-01-03 22:32:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,367
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/listerinezero/pseuds/listerinezero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erik vandalizes books, dresses as Superman, and goes to the top of the world, all to prove to Charles that they can still have fun, even after they’re retired.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Can Still Have Fun

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kageillusionz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kageillusionz/gifts).



> Inspired by the date ideas listed [here](http://kageillusionz.tumblr.com/post/47736446435/truthsbyme-thelaughingblog-perfection-yes).
> 
> Happy Holidays, Kage!

“Charles?”

“Yes, dear.”

“What are you doing?”

Charles looked up over the tops of his reading glasses and found Erik in the doorway to the office, rumpled in his bathrobe, silver hair askew.

“I’m just looking over the budget for next year,” Charles answered.

Erik crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s one-thirty in the morning. And it’s not your budget anymore.” He glanced around the room. “Nor is this your office anymore, I might add.”

“Yes, I am aware of that,” Charles rolled his eyes. “I’m not senile, you know.”

“I’m beginning to wonder.” Erik almost smiled, but not quite.

It was true: the large office at the end of the hall, which had been Charles’ office for more than forty years, now had the name Ororo Munroe hanging on the door. For the first time in the history of the Xavier-Lehnsherr Academy, neither Xavier nor Lehnsherr was at its helm. They still lived in the master suite upstairs, the one they’d shared since the elevator was completed, six months after Cuba, but as far as the school was concerned, they were all but invisible. They had stepped down from their posts and allowed the next generation to take the helm.

In theory, at least.

“Come back to bed,” said Erik. “I’m sure that whatever Ororo asked you for help with, she meant that she’d like you to help her during daylight hours.”

Ororo had not, strictly speaking, asked for Charles’ help. Not that he was about to admit that.

Erik must have read through Charles’ silence anyway. He shook his head and sighed into the chair in front of the desk. “I’m fairly sure that if Ororo wanted your opinion, she would have asked for it.”

“I’m only making sure that our school is being run properly,” Charles replied.

Erik crossed one leg over the other, a gesture now slowed with age, and sighed again. When he rested his chin in his hand, wrinkles creased the corner of his eye.

“Charles,” he said gently, “I think it’s time for us to retire.”

“We are retired,” said Charles, and pointed toward Ororo’s name on the desk.

“I mean,” Erik said, his voice softening, “I think it’s time for us to leave. It’s time for us to let this place go. Have a real retirement. We’ll buy a house nearby. We’ll garden in the summer, and travel in the winter. It’s what we always talked about.”

Charles shook his head and set his reading glasses down. “Yes, I know we talked about that, but... It just seems so… boring.”

“It won’t be boring,” said Erik. “We’ll have fun. I promise.”

 

**

 

Somewhere along the way, Charles’ books had been absorbed by the school library, and so filling the new empty bookshelves in their new living room in their new home became Charles’ new Tuesday task. Charles wasn’t sure he’d ever been to a Barnes and Noble before, but now they were there once a week, at least.

At first Charles had insisted on filling their shelves with classics and essentials: Homer, Austen, Shakespeare; biology, history, astrophysics. But after a while, he started to realize that he had plenty of time to read for his own enjoyment. Erik was tearing through spy novels, after all, and there was no one around to impress with his rereading of _On the Origin of Species._ (Erik was much more interested in talking about Tony Soprano than Charles Darwin these days _._ ) And there were these lovely tables right when you entered the store with wonderful selections of new fiction. And as it turned out, there were whole genres that had sprung up over the past several decades of mutant-related works. There were mutant romance novels. There was mutant - what is that - tentacle porn? Well, if he stuck it in between a couple of other things perhaps the cashier wouldn’t notice. After all, there was nothing wrong with a little bit of pleasure reading, was there?

Charles had a stack of five books (three mutant romance novels sandwiched between two biology texts) and was ready to check out, but first he had to find Erik.

Normally he would be able to spot Erik in the popular fiction section, or occasionally in science fiction, but this afternoon he was in the history department, and when Charles approached, he found a familiar book in his hands: _Children of the Atom: Mutants in the 1960s_ by Dr. Charles Xavier. He was also holding a pen and was scribbling into the text.

“What are you doing?” Charles asked.

Erik licked a finger and turned the page, then, frowning, crossed something out. “Making a few corrections.”

Charles snatched the book out of his hands and flipped through it. In the margins were notes like _“I absolutely did not!”_ and _“You told me you wanted me to make a scene - what did you expect?”_ and _“This happened in the fall, not the summer. I remember you were wearing that hideous green corduroy jacket with the elbow patches.”_

Charles gaped at Erik, who looked entirely too pleased with himself. “You realize this is vandalism, don't you?”

“Not after I autograph it,” Erik smirked. “Then it's a collector’s item.” He glanced at the books Charles had selected. “What is that?” he asked, picking up the middle one. “ _The Omega Who Loved Me_.” He turned it over. “ _Tough-minded Antony Rowland's sole intention is to free himself from the destructive influence of William Ballister, the notorious Omega-level mutant, whose feats of strength were known around the world. But when Antony’s wings--_ ”

Charles took the book out of his hands before he had the chance to finish and wheeled himself away.

“Where are you going?” Erik called after him, giggling.

“To find your book,” said Charles. “I have a few notes of my own.”

 

**

 

After a few months, Erik started to grow a beard. It looked terrible. It was patchy and uneven, white on his chin and upper lip, dirty gray on his jaw, and so coarse that it irritated Charles’ skin when Erik kissed him. But Charles liked it anyway. This was the first time in forty-five years that Erik had let his beard grow in, and it was nice to see him relaxed and comfortable in his own body for the first time in his life. Finally now he was dressing for himself instead of for the role of Magneto or Professor Lehnsherr or Nazi Hunter Extraordinaire or whatever the day called for. Seeing Erik happy made Charles happy, regardless of how unflattering that beard was.

Until it fully grew in, and Charles told him to shave it because it made him look like a hobo. He was glad that Erik was content, but even Charles had limits.

 

**

 

Erik had shaved his beard (under explicit orders from Charles) just in time for Halloween. He’d always ignored the holiday, but this year he was to escort his five-year-old granddaughter, Luna, trick-or-treating around their new neighborhood (also under explicit order from Charles). At first he’d thought that was a coincidence, until he saw the costume he was supposed to wear (under explicit order from Charles).

“But why Superman?” Erik asked as he fastened the yellow belt over the red briefs.

“I thought you’d like the cape,” said Charles.

“I don’t understand why I have to wear a costume at all,” Erik grumbled. “I’m not the one trick-or-treating.”

“All of the other adults will be in costume, and it will make Luna happy.”

Erik sat down on the bed to put on the knee-high boots. “I’m surprised you aren’t making me dye my hair black,” he pouted.

“I wouldn’t dare.”

Erik stood and wrapped the cape around his shoulders. He did always enjoy wearing a cape. He also always enjoyed the appreciative glances from Charles when he was in costume. Though it didn’t fit quite the way his old Magneto uniform did, back when he was in his thirties and had an ass firm enough to bounce a nickel off of, he could still feel the heat of Charles’ eyes on him as he looked himself over.

“Good enough for Luna?” Erik asked.

“Good enough for me.” Charles pulled him down and kissed him. “Now don’t move. I need to go get my camera.”

Erik sighed as Charles left to go rifle through the hall closet in search of his camera and took another look at himself in the mirror. He felt like an ass. But Charles liked it, and Luna would like it, and he wouldn’t look like any more of an ass than any of the other adults taking their kids out on Halloween. And he did enjoy having a cape again.

It turned out he’d been had - none of the other parents were in costume. One lady he saw wore a pointy witch’s hat and another wore cat ears, but that was about the extent of it.

“I’m never listening to your Grandpa Charles ever again,” Erik told Luna as they left a house where a lady had told him he looked “precious.” Him! Magneto! Precious! It was abominable.

“I like your Superman outfit, Grandpa!” Luna told him in her little baby voice and took his hand. “You look like a superhero!”

“I am a superhero!” he told her. “Well, sort of. I guess it depends on your perspective. History will hopefully be kinder to me than my contemporaries were, especially in the days before the Institute made us look almost respectable. At least there was no such thing as a ‘terrorist watch list’ in the 1970s or the FBI would have had my head on a pike.”

Luna, in her fluffy pink princess dress, clutching her orange pumpkin-shaped bucket full of candy, blinked up at him, confused.

“Nevermind. Let’s go across the street. They look rich. They’ll probably have good candy.” He dipped his hand into her bucket and took out a Tootsie Roll. “Don’t tell Grandpa Charles,” he winked, and popped the Tootsie Roll into his mouth.

After a while, Erik started to feel guilty that it was just the two of them. Most of the other kids were out in groups having fun together. Charles had suggested they let Luna bring a friend or two with her, but Erik had put his foot down: if the point was for him to spend quality time with his little granddaughter, he wasn’t going to babysit two other little ankle-biters, too. But now he saw that this was a group activity, and Luna, though she seemed to be having a nice time, was all alone.

When she was older, she would be able to go with a group of friends, Erik thought, like the boys who seemed to be perpetually ten feet behind them.

It seemed like every time Erik turned around, he saw these three nerdy boys, all around ten or eleven years old. One was visibly mutant (no one’s costume was that good) and another one seemed to have some trouble walking, which was perhaps why they were going no faster than a 75 year old man and a 5 year old little girl. They were a bit noisy, shouting and laughing at each other, but since at least one of them was a mutant, Erik did his best to suppress his old man instinct to tell them to keep it down, for godssake.

They’d only been out for about an hour when Luna started to droop. She shuffled along beside him, holding his hand and pouting. “Grandpa, I don’t want to walk anymore,” she whined.

“You don’t want to get any more candy?” he asked.

“I want the _candy_ ,” she said. “I don’t want to _walk_.”

“Well, you have to walk to get candy.” He took a look at the street sign at the corner. “We’re only a couple of blocks away from the house. Do you want to trick or treat the rest of the way or do you just want to go home?”

Before Luna could answer, a pair of teenage boys tore past them, bumping Erik in the shoulder. Erik turned and watched as they ran straight at the three boys who’d been behind them, yelled, “FREAKS!” and snatched their candy out of their hands. The boys started to run after them, screaming, “HEY, GIVE THAT BACK!” but the one boy, the one with the limp, couldn’t keep up.

They would have kept running all the way home if Erik hadn’t stopped them. He reached out with his powers and dragged them back along the road until they were at his feet, scraped and dirty from the pavement.

“Give it back,” he told them in his most intimidating voice.

When the two bullies said nothing, he lifted them into the air, turned them upside down, and shook them until all the candy fell to the ground, like human pinatas. Then he dropped them. When they stood, they ran off without a word.

That was as close to truth, justice, and the American way as Erik was ever going to get.

The three boys stared at him.

“Thanks, Superman!” said the mutant boy.

“Don’t mention it,” said Erik, and then, tossing his cape over his shoulder, together he and Luna walked home.

 

**

 

“Am I not good enough company for you, Charles?”

The dog smiled up at Charles as he scratched behind her ears. “Oh, come on, Erik. Look at that face!”

Erik appeared to be unmoved by Susannah’s big brown eyes and sweet floppy ears. She was a two-year-old golden retriever whose previous owner had suddenly passed away, and who Charles was determined to bring home with them, regardless of Erik’s grumbling.

“She’s shedding all over you,” Erik pointed out. “All she’s going to do is shed and poop.”

“I’ll also train her to pick up things I’ve dropped and open doors for me.”

“If you need a service dog, then we’ll get you a service dog.”

Susannah accepted a hug and a kiss from Charles, then padded over to Erik looking for the same.

Erik sighed in defeat. “She’s not sleeping in bed with us,” he told Charles as he pet her head.

“I can live with that,” Charles laughed.

 

**

 

If Charles’ doctor had one thing going for him, it was that he always had good magazines in the waiting room. Charles read through an entire issue of Scientific American waiting for the nurse to call his name and had already moved onto Travel and Leisure.

“Didn’t we always say we would travel after we retired?” he asked.

Erik discreetly tore a recipe out of Saveur. “Yes, but then you decided to get a dog.”

Charles held up a glossy photograph of a Tahitian beach. “I think we can afford to board Susannah for a week.”

“I am not boarding her,” Erik said. As Charles had predicted, Erik had fallen in love with the dog within days of bringing her home, and now spent as much time caring for her as he did for Charles. “There’s plenty of fun things we can do right here in New York, and still have time to get home to take Susannah for a walk.”

Charles rolled his eyes. “It’s March. It’s forty-five degrees outside. Don’t you think some palm trees and sunshine might be nice for a change?”

Erik patted Charles on the arm. “I’ll make you a pina colada when we get home.”

Charles sighed and went back to reading the magazine, making a mental note to ask Ororo about the possibility of leaving Susannah at the school should they ever decide to take a vacation. Surely Erik wouldn’t object to that.

Finally Charles’ turn came up, and he left Erik while he went back into the examination room to be poked and prodded as usual. It was tedious and frustrating, but Charles refused to take any chances on his health. He needed to be in tip-top shape if he was going to talk Erik into a trip to Tahiti.

The check-up was over in a short half hour, and he and Erik were out on the street in front of Columbia Medical Center, ready to head back home to Westchester. But instead of going to fetch the car, Erik stepped out onto Broadway and put his hand in the air.

“What are you doing?” Charles asked.

“I’m hailing a cab.”

“I can see that. Why?”

A Toyota Prius pulled up, but Erik waved the cab along, telling the driver, “I need a van for a wheelchair,” nodding towards Charles. When the cab drove away, he answered Charles, “Because we’re going to have a little vacation this afternoon, right here in town.”

A few minutes later a mini-van cab stopped for them, and after settling in for the ride, Erik surprised Charles by telling the driver, “34th and 5th, please.”

“The Empire State Building?” Charles asked.

“I’ve never been to the top. Have you?”

Charles grinned. “No, never. It’s so touristy. It’s probably going to be packed.”

Erik shrugged and put his arm around Charles’ shoulder. “Oh, come on. It will be fun.”

It was fun. It was spectacular, actually. The view might have been nicer in the springtime, and they might have been more comfortable on a warmer day, but the surprise of the visit made it all the more memorable. They even asked one of the other visitors to take their picture, posing together in front of the view of the skyline.

“I think I like this one best,” Charles said as he flipped through the photos later that afternoon at McSorley’s Ale House. He held up his phone to show Erik a picture of them making goofy faces, the Chrysler Building in the background.

Erik downed the last of his beer. “I told you we didn’t have to go to Tahiti to have fun.”

  
  


**

 

Spring was in full bloom when Charles and Erik got home from Tahiti. Charles would have preferred to have gone someplace warm in the winter, when they were snowed in for days at a time and driving each other up the wall, but it took a few months for Charles to convince Erik that Susannah would be all right at the school without them for a week and a half.

When they got off the plane, they retrieved the car from airport parking and went directly to pick up the dog. Dropping off their suitcases could wait; Erik’s reunion with Susannah could not.

“There’s my girl! There’s my good girl!” Erik cooed as he wrapped his arms around her neck. She was wagging her tail so hard that Charles could hear it smacking against the side of his chair.

“She’s a sweetie,” said Ororo. “It was nice having her around the house - she really made the kids smile. The adults, too!”

“That’s wonderful to hear,” said Charles. “I hope that means we could leave her here again, should we ever take another vacation.”

Ororo smiled. “Of course! She is welcome any time.” Ororo took Charles aside. “Actually, I wanted to ask your opinion on something. I was considering bringing in a dog or two - therapy dogs, I guess. I found that having the dog in the house really brought some of the students out of their shells. You know as well as I do that some of these kids have seen some real trauma, and to see them smiling and hugging another living thing… it brightened my day as much as theirs, probably. I don’t think there’s anything else that could bring that out in them so quickly.”

Charles looked over at Susannah, who was happily licking Erik’s face as he scratched behind her ears. “I think that would be a marvelous idea,” he told Ororo. “Of course you have to worry about allergies, but I’m sure you could find a way to handle it.”

“I’m sure we could come up with something. Hey, do you have a few minutes? I’m working on next year’s budget and I had a few things I’d love to pick your brain about.”

Charles was still focused on Erik, who was gathering up Susannah’s leash and toys.

“I would love to,” Charles told Ororo. “But maybe another time. Right now I’d really like to go home.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [We Can Still Have Fun (The Annotated Edition)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1973739) by [pocky_slash](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocky_slash/pseuds/pocky_slash)




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